Aztecs give city’s fans badly needed doses of comfort and joy

The best team in town will not be moving to Los Angeles. It will not be forced to trade its best player for a lack of funds. It is not seeking public subsidy for a new playpen, does not withhold television programming over unsold seats and does not fuel suspicion of inadequate financing by buying its franchise on the installment plan.

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Undefeated, undemanding and undiminished by the financial constraints of the small-market sports world, San Diego State’s men’s basketball team has been an unqualified delight at a troubling time in the city’s sports history.

The Chargers are nearing elimination and, perhaps, relocation. The Padres have followed up on startling success with another disturbing talent drain, most recently the deal that sent slugger Adrian Gonzalez to Boston for Who, What and I Don’t Know.

The atmosphere is acrid. The outlook is ominous. To reach a lower point on the local sports scene, you’d need Roseanne Barr serenading Donald Sterling during the Holy Roller game.

“Our kids think they can play with anybody,” SDSU coach Steve Fisher said Tuesday. “And I think we can. But also there are a whole lot of schools out there, starting with Cal (tonight), that can beat us bloody if we’re not playing our A game.”

Inasmuch as there’s no strategic advantage in the idle boast, coaches generally exercise caution in evaluating their own teams. They try to manage expectations so that their fans don’t assume too much, their players refrain from coasting and they don’t get themselves fired for overpromising and underdelivering.

But having opened their season with eight straight victories, and with a chance to reach 9-0 tonight for the first time in school history, the Aztecs are creating euphoria that Fisher may be hard-pressed to control. Having opened the season with their first-ever Top 25 ranking, the Aztecs have since climbed to the No. 14 rung in The Associated Press poll and to 15th in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, and have become the highest-ranked team west of Waco, Texas.

SDSU’s territorial dominance extends even further with a ninth-place showing in the influential Ratings Percentage Index. In that numbers-driven pecking order, only No. 6 Kansas exceeds Fisher & Co. west of the Mississippi River.

These are huge breakthroughs for a basketball program that was awash in apathy upon Fisher’s arrival in 1999. That year, the Aztecs’ 15 home games attracted announced crowds totaling 39,266.

This season, in three home games, the Aztecs have averaged 10,167. The word is out and it’s growing louder. With a powerful and seasoned front line and higher potency in the backcourt, the Aztecs have made 52 percent of their shots and averaged eight more rebounds per game than their opponents. They are getting persistent brilliance from their star, sophomore forward Kawhi Leonard, without leaning on him too heavily. They are getting balanced scoring across the floor, effective minutes from the far end of the bench and fewer than two turnovers per game from their poised point guard, D.J. Gay.

Though San Diego State has yet to win a single game in any NCAA Tournament, this team would seem to have all of the ingredients for a meaningful March except for tournament pedigree.

“We’ve got some good pieces,” Fisher said. “We’ve got a team (that) with a little luck, and if we don’t get stage fright, if we get (to the tournament), we could make some noise.”

Tonight’s game at Cal (5-2, but ranked 20th in the RPI) should adjust the volume level, up or down. Though the Aztecs have already won at Gonzaga, a road victory against a Pac-10 power carries its own measure of credibility.

“When we were initially voted first time ever in AP, I said, ‘Wait and see if we’re still around Dec. 9,’ ” Fisher said. “I knew that would be after Cal and we would have a little better measure about whether we were going to fight our way.”

Whatever the result, a single nonconference game in December is more of a pop quiz than a final exam. It tells you where you are, not where you are likely to finish. Yet 21 years since his NCAA Championship at Michigan, Steve Fisher has already seen enough to appreciate his Aztecs’ possibilities.

“It’s fun,” he said. “Fun for the kids, and us (coaches), too. Fun for me. I’d much rather be in this position than fighting for survival, fighting to tread water.

“You have to close your eyes and say, ‘Why can’t we win?’ ”

When you open your eyes, it’s nice to see that there’s at least one team in town that is both here to stay and going places.